WWII Journal: Milford veteran survived POW camp, became Deacon

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Apr 7, 2014 at 12:02 AMApr 7, 2014 at 8:47 AM

By Brad PetrishenDaily News Staff

Joseph Manella spent the mid-1940s as a prisoner of war in Singapore, where he worked like a dog during the day to earn his handful of rice each night.On a good day, he’d supplement his diet with something he found by the side of the road while working, or perhaps with meat from a cat he or comrades managed to catch.On a bad day, he’d find himself inside a "hospital" inside the prison camp, wracked with malaria and vomiting in front of guards who waited passively for him to die.He was one of the lucky ones."A lot of the guys didn’t make it," the Milford native said of the airmen inside the six American planes Manella that were shot down with on Sept. 15, 1943 over what is now Vietnam.The Americans had been trying to bomb a Japanese-held cement plant, but Manella believes the Japanese had some sort of advanced warning."They were waiting for us," said Manella, pointing to his left arm, which was hit during the attack and rendered useless as the plane was going down.Thinking quickly, Manella used his good arm to put a parachute on a dazed comrade and pushed him out of the plane. Then he jumped himself, having trouble getting his own parachute deployed properly because of his injury."I heard this voice say to me, ‘Well Joe, this is the way you wanted it: quick, clean and easy," the 95-year-old said, remembering how he spun awkwardly toward the ground as bullets from Japanese Zeroes flew through the air."Yes Lord, but not now," Manella remembers thinking. "There’s something at home I need to do."Manella thanks God to this day he landed safetly in a rice paddy. After being brought to a hospital, Manella was turned over to a Japanese prison camp."I took an oath I would take the secrets to my (grave) if needed," Manella remembered. "They asked me, 'Are you going to stick to that?’ I said, ‘Yes.’"Manella said he and other prisoners were treated harshly by guards. One day, a guard had to be talked out of decapitating him with a sword after he stopped working to collect something to eat by the road."All they gave us was a handful of rice a day," said Manella, who was down to 95 pounds by the time he left the camp.Manella and five other Americans lived in a shanty in the camp that was across from the building where food was cooked. Sometimes stray cats wandered into the camp at night and headed for the kitchen. Manella and his comrades would try to catch them."I took that cat, slammed it against the wood, killed it and skinned it," Manella said, whipping his hands through the air.Manella said in order to store the cats, he came up with an idea to ask the guards if they could dig a hole under the shanty in case the prison got bombed."We didn’t have refrigerators," Manella said rhetorically, smiling. "So that’s where we put the cats."It was a far cry from life in Milford, where, as he’ll proudly tell you, Manella was born and raised."I used to peddle milk in Milford," Manella said, remembering back to the days of his youth.Manella vividly remembers his mother crying one day and telling him a neighbor’s husband had died."I was 7. I went over there and said, 'I want to learn how to milk cows and help you with the farm,'" Manella said. "And I did."For years, Manella worked side-by-side with the woman’s son, milking cows and making deliveries in a horse cart throughout town.Manella was in his early 20s and working as a machinist in Hopedale on Dec. 7, 1941, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.The next day, he quit his job and joined the Army Air Corps."I had to drop everything," he said, remembering how angry he was about what happened.Manella went for training in Alabama, forming an opinion about what he wanted to do pretty early on."I decided I wanted to be a bombardier," Manella said, smiling. "I said, ‘If I’m going be in the Air Force, I want to do the bombing.'"Manella recalled fondly his training days with his crew in Texas, including the time they accidentally flew off course and hit a real target."I blew up a gasoline station," he said laughing. Luckily, it was closed for the night.When he went overseas, he was assigned to China, and flew more than a dozen missions before he was shot down.He wasn’t liberated until after the Japanese surrendered in 1945. In the two years he was a prisoner, Manella estimates he was near death with sickness at least six times.Manella said each time he thought he would die he had a holy vision, and each time he woke up the next morning alive.When he got home from the war, he worked for years as a teacher in Milford and later as a principal. He raised five kids with his wife Anne; the couple met at a Sons of Italy spelling bee.He also stayed on in the Air Force reserves, serving on rescue missions in Brazil and Chile.Manella said one day in the early 1980s, he realized what he’d meant when he’d told God he had something to do "back home" the day he was shot down. He retired from the schools in 1982, became ordained and for the past three decades has served the Worcester Diocese.Manella still serves as Deacon at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Hopedale, where a stained glass window he commissioned is adorned with visions he had as a POW. He still lives in Milford near his childhood home, and keeps a clean house that would make his wife, who died in 1992, proud."I’m serving the Lord of God every minute of my life," said Manella, who thanks God every day for getting him out of Singapore alive."They had nothing to give us, not even aspirin," Manella said, recalling the paltry building in the camp the Japanese called a hospital. "They just waited for us to die."Brad Petrishen can be reached at 508-490-7463 or bpetrishen@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @BPetrishen_MWDN.

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